Last Chance to Paint

£75 raised of £7,000 goal

A world-class art project for schools and children looking at endangered ecosystems.

'Last Chance to Paint' is artist John Dyer's visual conversation with the world. John is the artist in residence for the Eden Project and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He is working with the Eden project and The Born Free Foundation to connect young minds, through art, to endangered ecosystems and peoples around the world. It's a race against time.

“John Dyer is doing absolutely fantastic work. Not just in awareness, but I really like his paintings and how he is making art and sustainability a joint activity which can unite people.”Dr. Heleen de Coninck, Radboud University and co-author of reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

With your support, we will be able to engage, inspire, bond and connect schools and children from all over the world to endangered tribes and ecosystems. Our £7000 goal will enable us to run the next chapter of 'Last Chance to Paint'

We truly believe that art can help to change the world by building meaningful and personal connections, understanding and knowledge.

Why do we need your support?

If you feel passionate about climate change, the environment and the arts then we are appealing to you to help us to make a difference.

We will be using the funds to run the exciting global projects which will be ongoing and hopefully at least one each school year will be delivered.

The funds will specifically be used to fund the cost of travel, art materials for tribal artists and children from the tribes to use, and the costs of the communication systems and data we will need to be able to broadcast live back to schools across the world. Each of the projects within 'Last Chance to Paint' will run for around 10 days but the outcomes will be celebrated for years online and the connections we build will last a lifetime for the children involved.

We will be using 3G and 4G telecommunications systems but in the more remote locations, such as when we visit and paint with the Yawanawá tribe in the Amazon and the Penan tribe in Borneo, we will need to use satellite communication equipment as at the very least we want to be able to have a text-based communication with schools and children working with us on the project and when we can will have live video from the location so that children can 'meet' the amazing people, plants, animals and locations we travel to.

We need a small team to travel to achieve our aims. Lead artist John Dyer, explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison, educationalist and musician Martha-Lilly Dyer will form the core team on some of the projects, but we will always need three or four people to travel so that John Dyer can paint, we can explore the environment and culture we are in and communicate, photograph and film the project for schools. We hope to be able to deliver art, music, culture and information and to ask questions that schools may have while we are on the ground.

None of the team members is being paid - we only need funding for the costs incurred so we can deliver this amazing project.

We absolutely want to inspire the next generation and to connect peoples from around the world through art.

When do we need the funds for?

We are fundraising now for the second and third chapters of the project which will go live in 2020. Each project only needs around £7000 to run. The second and third chapters will be based in Africa and being planned by The Born Free Foundation. They will include a new set of work on Rhinos 'Precious Africa' and looking at why we only have two Northern White Rhino left on planet earth.

What will your support mean to the project?

Your support will mean so much and create opportunities. We really feel an urgent need to connect amazing people and places to children in schools and to create those personal bonds so that they choose to tread lightly on the planet as they grow up. We want them to know that the people, landscapes and animals they have 'met' through the project will be impacted if they make poor decisions.

Art is under threat in the UK education system and mental health issues are increasing. We want 'Last Chance to Paint' to create a valuable space for art to become a central hub to learning in the classroom and your donation can help us to achieve this by empowering teachers to use art as the hub to the wider curriculum. When children are given space to paint, collage, draw and create, to spend time connecting in their own way to a subject their brains develop, their personalities can shine, their natural creativity is allowed to breath and their mental health can improve. There are so many benefits.

Thank you from John Dyer

"Hello, if you have got this far then thank you so much for your interest. With a donation from yourself and the goodwill of the organisations and people I am working with, I know that together we can achieve something special and really connect many young minds, in the most amazing way, to the environment.

There is no time to lose. All of our futures depend on the next generation being creative, connected and informed.

If you are an individual or have a business that resonates with our aims and would like to sponsor an entire project with £7000 then please email me at john@lastchancetopaint.com as we would love to talk to you. If you have £25 you can gift to the project that would be amazing as every donation will get us closer to delivering more art, nature and positivity into schools. Thank you for your support."

John Dyer.Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and Artist in residence for the Eden Project.